


the badlands

by jamingbenn



Series: mcyt demon au [1]
Category: Dream Team (Video Blogging RPF), Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Demon Deals, M/M, listen when you want a demon you gotta bleed a lil, metaphysical stuff, no beta we die like techno never does, no gore or depictions of violence though, other than one slight case of blood, this is a demon!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27571279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamingbenn/pseuds/jamingbenn
Summary: Dream was only human. And here's the thing about being human: humanswant.or, a demon!au.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: mcyt demon au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015347
Comments: 11
Kudos: 249





	the badlands

**Author's Note:**

> thank you mikey for talking this thru with me
> 
> i recommend listening to halsey's badlands album on loop while reading this
> 
> do not text about how i should be working on english boarding school au, i know i know i know

-

Here’s the thing no one says about the dark night. Sometimes, it’s not just the clouds that swirl.

Humanity is so fragile. It is fractured, and it is weak. Perhaps there is something beautiful about that, but.

People will give anything up for their dreams. People give themselves up, sometimes.

Clay saw, once, the price people pay, and Clay didn’t want that, not really. Not the way celebrities walking red carpets had gleaming smiles but empty eyes. His mother liked it when he smiled.

But Clay is only human. And humans want.

So he struck a lesser bargain. He wouldn’t understand what it meant, not till much later. His demon, in a blazing neon glow, had thumbed the middle of his forehead. Branding him with a mark to be of his own, and that was it.

That was when he became Dream.

—

The badlands, is what they’ve been called, the words shaped around the whisper of time. Before it was even evident why, before the souls of beings past and future coalesced into the fabric of space time.

The badlands are made of what used to be good soil. Clayey, water-rich, nutrients of love pumped through the cracks. Before they were dried out, wind-blown, and settled only to face the inevitably of erosion.

These are the badlands. Clay rich soil packed down into a wondrous sight. An agglomeration of evidence of life, gathered only to be marveled at, but forget not, temporary.

—

It was an oppressively hot day.

Clay had pulled his shirt away from his chest, annoyed, disgusted at the dampness that was Florida, the way he almost had to fight to walk through the air, heavy, sticky with humidity.

Clay is not a prophetic name. It is not even a particularly old one. It is a name given by those ignorant of the spirits around them, blissfully unaware of the greater forces churning at work. It is a name given by those whose concerns float on the surface of awareness.

Clay is not one of those people. Clay is someone who had fought to break through.

It was hard, being 16. Even the Gods will acknowledge that, over their little bites of cheese fed by hands dipped in gold.

Maybe that’s why they cut them so much slack, sometimes.

—

The day of the deed was no different than any else. Clay had gone to school, and lost a basketball game.

It was an important one, but the loss was nothing out of ordinary. Florida’s religiosity is transplanted, it is not in grown. The swamp was no place for angels or demons.

So everyone on his team had their soul.

Clay tried not to resent that, sometimes, the way no one seemed to care. Everyone good had a sold soul, this was common fact. Le Bron had a deal. The presidents usually did. Certainly all the actors.

He roughed a hand through sandy locks. It was not in their lore, not here. No one thought about it too much. Trading was something done by other people. Not by themselves.

Who could blame him, really, for not knowing what it would have been like? He was not a good Canadian boy, their lands shaped with hostility, needed to be appeased to be fruitful.

No, Florida was the swamp. It was not pretty, but it was habitable.

Their people don’t know the price of giving themselves up for life.

But Clay was sick of this poor excuse of living.

—

He only told Sapnap. That wasn’t his name, not then. Clay called him Pandas, but Pandas is not Nick.

Clay was sick of mere mediocrity. He didn’t want to be content, he wanted exilaration. Sometimes, when the moon struck just right, he felt tingles glowing under his fingertips.

And there’s something Clay has that the people of his land, historically, did not. He had the internet.

It is easier now, than it was then, when the herbs were passed on through whispers and learned lessons. All Clay had to do was to google, and then wait a dark night.

When he drew the line of salt, his fingers trembled with a power not his own. The knife he brought was dull, but it would do, his hands clumsy for the first time.

His blood pounded in his ears.

“You are alive,” it had said, the brightest of the swarm.

Clay swallowed. “Yes,” he answered, his voice weak compared to it’s echo.

“And what do you want?”

“To be known.”

“You are known now, youthful one. A bit older than what you may have been further north, but plenty young still.”

Clay looked up, drive welling up within him, with the same force that he had threw his bag down after a loss. “No,” he had said. “I wish to be heralded.”

“There’s a price to be paid for that,” the glow of the green glare hummed. “How much?”

“What do you take,” Clay forced out, laboured with the task of breathing.

The mass of light laughed. “Depends on what you want. Depends on how much you want to give.”

Clay had thought this through. “Not too big,” he murmured. “I’m picky. I don’t want my life to change, but. I just want to be known. To be known for being _good_.”

It buzzed, almost with electricity but mostly with glee. “I know just the thing.”

—

His demon is young, is the thing. The ones that had less ties to the lands that made them had migrated down south, to the heat, to where the humans didn’t need them. To where the challengers were infrequent but interesting. To where the shiny new humanness of technology cried its appeal to ancient forces.

A signal travels through wires and they call that the internet.

Dream had sparks descended into his being.

He has a mess of green, flaring light staining the inside of him, christening his clayey soil into a land of dreams.

—

Clay gave the light a life, so the life gave them a name. Dream, now, it had said.

And so Dream was.

—

Dream never once tried to convince anyone else, not since he stopped being Clay to anyone not from before.

It isn’t all that it’s cracked out to be. Dream has clever hands and a magnetic air. But Dream does not have control, not anymore, and at some point, one does get sick of breaking computers and punching walls. Clay does not remember why, but Dream does not need to.

George is so— so painfully human. He stumbles with an awkwardness that is born. He smiles, bashful, and there is nothing hiding the words written all over.

Dream does not have control. Dream punches through walls when his water isn't cold enough. Dream's heart goes into free fall at the slightest hint of George's smile.

Dream has all these emotions raging through him, all the time, set loose without any hope of being corralled. 

Dream's demon was kind. It let him keep his joy, but people forget.

How too much joy can also be a tortured thing.

—

It was fairly obvious that Clay had made a deal. George does not know what he gave up, but everyone knew you did not get to 12 million in 6 months without a giving something.

(Well, not everyone. Some people still believed in human exceptionalism. George scoffs at that. He has not been taken, but he comes from old land. Maybe Derbyshire had nothing but farms, but their farms are century old.

George knows what it takes for a good harvest.)

Dream was human. It would do him well to be reminded more frequently of the fact, George thought, watching the delicate arch of his brow bone. His skin stretched when he smiled, warm, his muscles moving as evidence of his liveliness.

George’s hands itched, sometime, from how much he wanted to brush over Dream’s skin. Just another, tactile, tangible piece he got to tuck away just for him. Just to feel the life teeming underneath.

George doesn’t want to pry. He just wants to evidence Dream’s life.

—

Mostly, demons work in subtle ways. Molds the arch of a skate for an Olympics ice dancer, guides the shape of a smile for an Oscar’s winning actor.

Dream laughs easier. Dream glows from within. Dream is magnetic, like the sweet scent of blooming spring, bringing swarming bees to the glory of his fields. Dream's charisma is electric, and everyone around him stumbles in their eagerness to please him, to have more of the joy he dissipates.

They will eventually all recoil when he strikes out in anger, but this is the work of a demon. Everyone crawls back.

Dream’s demon did not like George, in the beginning. It did not like like that he was unpaired, the potential brimming in him, just begging to be conquered.

It only tried once.

—

They were grabbing brunch, the lazy fucks, rolling out of their apartment in hoodies and slip ons for greasy bacon and gratifying stacks of pancakes. Clay was quiet, but Clay could get like this, sometimes, out of the limelight.

When George put his menu back down on the table, Clay’s eyes had rolled back. The underside was black.

George stared at the soulless, soulless pits where his eyes should have been and tried not to swallow too loudly.

“Hello,” he managed, remembering the rules. Be polite, but firm. Don’t ask you too many questions.

Dream’s head turned in satisfaction. “What a fascinating partner he has chosen.”

George went red in an instant at the insinuation. “I am afraid you are mistaken,” he murmured, soft.

“How cute.” It smiled, a vicious thing. “Do not forget that I am older than time.”

“Sorry,” George managed, his leg bouncing with tension now. “But Clay's just a friend.”

“ _Clay_ ,” it scoffed, twisting the gentle word into an insult. “You humans and your labels. You are partners in my words and you will be in yours.”

The light above them flickered as its ugliness sneered Clay's face.

“It is alright that you do not understand. There are human choices _Clay_ still makes. We made a gentle deal. It is his time to waste.”

“Why do wish to speak to me?” The formal words sat wrong in George’s mouth, but he could not break free.

“Why, to introduce myself.” It dropped Clay’s muscles, and his face looked lifeless once more. “And to introduce you.”

The air was charged now, no doubt his doing. “I have many friends,” the demon said. “And you have plenty of life in you.”

“This is for him.” George realized. “You want me to make a deal.”

The chuckle it gave was low, and it grated under George’s skin.

“What would I even give?” George asked, astonished.

It sighed. “I do not speak for deals that are not mine to make. I can only act in your boy’s best interests.”

“He is not my boy,” George’s small voice was barely a low rasp.

It smiled, rueful. “How nice it was meeting you, George.”

—

The terms were not Dream's demon's to offer. He had made his deal, he had to finish it out. He could not take another during that time. Small transactions, sure. Not the kind he was talking to George about.

He wouldn’t act without a purpose, however, and he’s done his job. He has made George think.

So George sneaks out, their box of salt stolen from their kitchen clutched in one hand, a sharp edged knife in the other.

His salt circled all the way around, not the line needed for most other purposes. His blood flowed easily, from both his arm and the gnawing on his lips.

They flocked to him at first drop, swirls of energy mockingly dark. Their whispers were eager, hungry, but they kept their distance, feeling him out. And at once, they retreated.

All but one, a ring of light with a wide mouth, twisting into a grin that was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

“An older one,” it said. “One who knows the rules.”

“George,” it continued. “How delightful. Speak.”

George did not realize he was waiting for permission, not until it was given to him. “Hello.”

“A meek one,” it replied, delighted, swirling closer. Ready to pounce. “You realize I can give you everything.”

The air was charged now, no doubt it’s doing. The mass of darkness smiled, the sneering energy tingling down George’s scalp. “I could give you a dream.”

“I have dreams.” George's palms were slick, uncomfortable.

“How quaint,” it buzzed, and George wondered through his fear if all demons were this fucking annoying. “You are different. Delightful. Such an easy taste on the lips.”

It circled around. “Everyone else wants to give their life up for their dreams. But you have none,” it mused. "Oh, you have a Dream, I see that clearly. But none of your own."

George laughed, empty. “You think I have no drive. No purpose? Or is it just goals that I lack?”

“I am a demon, I do not think it." It grinned, a manic thing. "I know it.”

“What would it take?” George whispered, his blood drying in flakey streaks down his arm.

“Why, the very thing that makes you sweetest,” the demon smiled. “I’d take your love.”

—

George did not take the deal. Not even when it had tried to scare him, a delicate tendril pointing right at the left of his chest. Not even after George’s heart had panged, just once, painful, just he assumed a heart attack would be. It ran through him, the pain, sharp in a way that had him taking in shocked breath, closing his eyes against it.

Be firm. Do not ask too many questions.

“Thank you for the offer, but I’ll pass.”

The demon recoiled, it’s disappointed sneer a tangible thing. “You dare defy me?”

“I’m not yours to order. I refused your deal,” George said, his voice urgent now. This was not a part of the script he was told.

With a huff, the demon retreated, cracking a stroke of lightning into the distance. “Your loss.”

It felt like it too, is the thing. After the day dawned clear and the line of salt was broken, something in George still felt loose, empty.

—

When he tells Clay about this later, in one of those moments over breakfast that’s too boring for his demon to bother with control, the dark mass slumbering gently over his shoulder, Clay’s eyes go bright with a fierceness that can only be human.

“Good,” he says, biting.

He looks back up at George, eyes coursing with an unbridled electricity that burned bright green. “Good," he repeats.

Funny, isn't it, how all it took was a single word.

Just one word for George to feel whole again.

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as an interesting look into the techno and dream rivalry, but then george butted his fat head in, the beacon of innocence he is, and i was like damn, you really have a place in this story now huh. also maybe one day i will stop writing fics about dream's chosen name literally being dream, but for now it is still fascinating for me.
> 
> please kudos if you liked it! and also comment! maybe even check out my other fics! i desperately need validation i am unravelling on the inside ha ha ha! also now i can write the techno focused sequel to this without george chanting about the back of my head
> 
> tumblr: jamingbenn


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